


What Gets Your Blood Racing

by NorroenDyrd



Series: Love is No Illusion [3]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Body Image, Denial of Feelings, Gen, Pining, Secret Crush, Self-Esteem Issues, Some Plot, Thieves Guild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 08:58:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13244883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: Niruin asks the Orcish thief Umtaz a question that she cannot answer.





	What Gets Your Blood Racing

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a Tumblr prompt.

It was quite smart of Brynjolf to get the new Orc girl to learn some Illusion magic in the College up north: at least now, when she clambers down into the hideout at Cistern, her heavy boots glowing blue with the aura of a muffling spell, she does not make any more that deafening rattling noise, which would always make Delvin grow tense, hand travelling to his dagger, and Vekel roll up his eyes to the dripping ceiling, bracing himself for those few guardsmen who actually care about their job to come and wreck his establishment (of course, in that event, Maven would have gotten them off the hook eventually, but still, one likes to avoid unpleasantness).  
  
  
The spell wears off just as the big she-thug completes her descent, and her stomps send a ringing echo under the heavy vaults of the sewers, safely out of the surface-dwelling simpletons’ earshot, while she marches to the Flagon, dragging a bulging burlap sack after her. Her face, moss-green and ploughed with scars, is set into a sour grimace, with her lower lip sagging down and jutting forward, baring her short but thick tusks - which Niriun, who is lounging at the side of her path, with a bottle of Black-Briar’s finest, his feet dangling over the edge of the wooden walkway, finds quite amusing.  
  
  
'Now, now,’ he drawls teasingly, eyes glinting under his leather hood. 'Why so glum? Where is the exhilaration over a job well done?’  
  
  
'Not everyone is like you, Niriun,’ the Orc snaps over her shoulder, readjusting the weight of her bountiful burden.  
  
  
The little elf throws up his arms in mock despair.  
  
  
'Oh, Umtaz, Umtaz,’ he sings, 'Is there not anything that gets your blood racing? That quickens your heartbeat and sets off this tingling rush up your spine?’  
  
  
The Orc scoffs and trudges off without a reply. 'Cause, well… She can’t tell Niruin the truth, can she?  
  
  
She can’t tell him that there actually is something that awakens her whole self, like a gust of a fresh, pine-scented breeze in the morning; like a plunge of her huge, coarse hand into the crystal clear water of a mountain spring (so transparent that it almost seems to her that she is waving her callused fingers in mid-air); like a swift, single shot of that strong Dunmer liquor they serve in Windhelm in little bug chitin cups, not enough to get you drunk, but enough to shudder all over and suddenly see new, vibrant shades in the drag squalor that surrounds you. There is something that has the same effect on her as all these things - only stronger, more lasting, reaching to her very bones. And she can’t let Niruin, or Delvin, or Bryn, or anyone else, learn what that something is. Because if they know, they will mock the tusk out of her. And will be absolutely in the right.  
  
  
She realizes that all too well. No, really. What sort of typical Orc brute, who started out as a grubby homeless urchin and grew up to be a bulky, scabby-fisted bruiser that spends half her time in a stinkin’ sewer, gets all giddy and excited over… magic, of all things? What sort of hapless street rat, who was predestined to be a thief, and nobody else but a thief, would rather be drawing sparkly glyphs and brewing potions than robbing people and hauling the swag to Delvin and Tonilia? What sort of woman, who could not be further removed from the world of pretty dresses and curtseys and dainty dances, the world reserved for those with cleaner hands and nicer faces, blushes like a gods-damned fifteen-year-old when being praised by her Illusion teacher - a soft-spoken, slightly awkward elf who does not seem to care how ugly she is (or even understand the concept of ugliness, the precious sweetheart not of this earth)? And… And gets overcome by that blood-quickening when her eyes meet his?  
  
  
A crap-load of embarrassing nonsense, that.


End file.
